[ HIFF 2003 COVERAGE ]
Dance film reaches
out for glory
Wayne Peng's artful, monochromatic film about a dance school in Shanghai wants to be more than a documentary -- just like the teachers and students who aspire to make their dreams real to an outside world.
The two opening segments celebrate the liberating aspects of dance and filmmaking. A woman elegantly moves atop a skyscraper, set against the glorious Shanghai skyline. She then playfully tap-dances through a series of cityscape set pieces.
'Burning Dreams'
Golden Maile nominee for best documentary:Screens: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and 4 p.m. Friday at Dole Cannery
We're watching the charismatic Yang Yang, who, with her mentor Liang Yi, runs the Dreams 52 Dance School. It's here that young, bright-eyed students from across the country learn jazz, tap and hip-hop. In a culture that emphasizes academic excellence over such "self-indulgent" activities, it's up to Yi and Yang to cultivate personal expression through the joy of movement.
The students, their faces beaming, watch themselves move in the wall-length mirror. They express their awakened desire to show the world what they've learned as the camera tracks their faces in close-up.
But this is not "Fame Redux," although "Burning Dreams" sometimes approximates the American movie's verve and energy. These students will likely never be good enough to dance professionally. Their teachers have no formal training. The elder Yi learned to dance by watching and emulating the moves of Gene Kelly and Elvis Presley, and was a Taiwanese entertainer once famous for his "ah-fei" (rock 'n' roll) dance.
With each passing year, Yi becomes more cranky and impatient with his sometimes undisciplined students, but still hopes to find that one jewel in the bunch. He found one earlier in the now 25-year-old Yang, a dancer equal in passion to Yi and still trying to keep her career dreams alive. She considers her teaching duties as only a stopgap in what she sees as a promising career.
So while Peng and cinematographer Nan-Hung Ho document the hard-run classes and the public performances in shopping malls, Peng makes it a point to juxtapose the dance movement with the romantic ballads of Chet Baker and Johnny Hartman, a musical reminder of their aspirations.
It's not surprising that audiences end up rooting for Yi, Yang and the students -- particularly after three of the school's more effusive girls develop a dance of peace for deaf-and-mute students.
The students adore and respect their teachers, even when Yi is at his most exasperated, but the school's existence is solely dependent on promising the students, if they work hard, might become dancers. But it's up to Yi and Yang "to instill brightness ... to awaken the light" in their charges.
Despite the documentary being overlong and awkwardly constructed at times, when all the elements click it's a joy to behold, like a well-executed dance move.
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